The “Scientific colour map” Initiative: Version 7 and its new additions

• Does visualisation hinder scientific progress?
• Is visualisation widely misused to tweak data?
• Is visualisation intentionally used for social exclusion?
• Is visualisation taken seriously by academic leaders?

Using scientifically-derived colour palettes is a big step towards making it obsolete to even ask such brutal questions. Their perceptual uniformity leaves no room to highlight artificial boundaries, or hide real ones. Their perceptual order visually transfers data effortlessly and without delay. Their colour-vision deficient friendly nature leaves no reader left wondering. Their black-and-white readability leaves no printer accused of being not good enough. It is, indeed, the true nature of the data that is displayed to all viewers, in every way.

The “Scientific colour map” initiative (Crameri et al., 2020) provides free, citable colour palettes of all kinds for download for an extensive suite of software programs, a discussion around data types and colouring options, and a handy how-to guide for a professional use of colour combinations. Version 7 of the Scientific colour maps (Crameri, 2020) makes crucial new additions towards fairer and more effective science communication available to the science community.

Crameri, F., G.E. Shephard, and P.J. Heron (2020), The misuse of colour in science communication, Nature Communications, 11, 5444.

Crameri, F. (2020). Scientific colour maps. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1243862